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Tag Archives: atonement

No bunnies, no money-a much bigger payment

Easter Celebration-the day we remember Jesus Christ, after being death for 3 days and 3 nights, arose from the dead and still lives in heaven–is about the triumph of Christ over sin and death.
This is why the Apostle Paul celebrates Christ as the “2nd Adam” who rectifies, sets aright, the problems initiated in the universe by the “1st Adam”–the woes of the created universe, of our flesh (sickness and death) and of our sin (think of emotional problems and hurts if you do not understand sin). No perfection can be attained by ourselves, no, we must have it done for us by a much bigger power–and one who cares for us–humans cannot hoist themselves up by their own bootstraps.
Some scriptural thoughts about this:
“Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood.
For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death.
Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying. ” The Bible: Hebrews 2:14-15 (NLT)

“Is anyone thirsty?
Come and drink—
even if you have no money!
Come, take your choice of wine or milk—
it’s all free!
Why spend your money on food that does not give you strength?
Why pay for food that does you no good?
Listen to me, and you will eat what is good.
You will enjoy the finest food.
“Come to me with your ears wide open.
Listen, and you will find life.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you.
I will give you all the unfailing love I promised to David.”
The Bible: Isaiah 55:1-3 (NLT)

HAPPY EASTER!

Not About You–Yet It Is…

HOLY SONNET XV
Wilt thou love God, as he thee? Then digest,
My soul, this wholesome meditation,
How God the Spirit, by angels waited on
In heaven, doth make his Temple in thy breast.

The Father having begot a Son most blest,
And still begetting, (for he ne’er be gone)
Hath deigned to choose thee by adoption,
Co-heir t’ his glory, and Sabbath’ endless rest.

And as a robbed man, which by search doth find
His stol’n stuff sold, must lose or buy ‘t again:
The Son of glory came down, and was slain,
Us whom he’d made, and Satan stol’n, to unbind.

‘Twas much that man was made like God before,
But, that God should be made like man, much more.

- John Donne (1572-1631)
(I provided the spacing.)

Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.” Matthew 22:37, The Message

The Preposterous Christ?

Then comes the real shock. Among the Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time. Now let us get this clear. Among Pantheists, like the Indians, anyone might say that he was a part of God, or one with God: there would be nothing very odd about it.
But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God. [Because] God, in their language, meant the Being outside the world Who had made it and was infinitely different from anything else.
And when you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips.
One part of the claim tends to slip past us unnoticed because we have heard it so
often that we no longer see what it amounts to:
… the claim to forgive sins: any sins. Now unless the speaker is God, this is really so preposterous as to be comic.
Yet this is what Jesus did.
He told people that their sins were forgiven, and never waited to consult all the other people whom their sins had undoubtedly injured.
He unhesitatingly behaved as if He was the party chiefly concerned, the person chiefly offended in all offences.
This makes sense only if He really was the God
 whose laws are broken and whose love is wounded in every sin.
God does care. He cares so much that he came among us in human flesh.

  • C S Lewis
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